Courses

The concept of liberal arts embodies certain fundamental goals, among them breadth, depth, independent thinking, and rational and humane self-determination. Denison’s curriculum provides the means by which these characteristics are deliberately nurtured in our students. Our commitment to a liberal arts education is expressed in the form of General, Major, and Elective requirements.

This course is an introduction to selected themes, periods, and sites of visual production and built practice in Europe, the Mediterranean, and the New World. It focuses on a selected series of 'case studies' that integrate sites/monuments significant to the flow of Western art with period-specific and general critical issues. The relation of systems of visual and architectural representation to period-specific and current understandings of power, ritual, and the human body, as suggested through the disciplines of Art History and Visual Culture, will be key.

ARTH-111

Credit Hours:

4

Modern Art and Visual Culture

An introduction to the Art and Visual Culture of the Modern Age. This course examines the wide range of visual production of the Modern Age primarily in Europe and North America. It examines the concepts of the Modern, Modernity and Modernism. The class is taught through the lenses and using the methodologies of both Art History and Visual Culture, operating on the assumption that the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries are the age of visual culture. Thus, the class discusses both elite art and the rising popular culture.

ARTH-121

Credit Hours:

4

African Art and Visual Culture

This course examines the diverse arts and visual culture of Africa. The scope of this course ranges from pre-colonial to contemporary times, considering a selection of objects, concepts and practices from across the continent. The course is designed to provide you with an introduction to these art forms and the various socio-cultural, historical, critical and aesthetic platforms from which they operate. In addition, we will explore some of the key theoretical issues in the portrayal and interpretation of art and visual culture from this world arena.

ARTH-131

Credit Hours:

4

Asian Art and Visual Culture

An introduction to the art and visual culture of India, China, Japan and Southeast Asia focusing on historical, religious and social issues and the function of both art and visual culture.

ARTH-199

Credit Hours:

1-4

Introductory Topics in Art

A general category used only in the evaluation of transfer credit.

ARTH-201

Credit Hours:

4

Classical Art and Architecture

This course is an introduction to the art and architecture of Greece and Rome. Visual and spatial practices of religion and politics will be examined, focusing on Classical Athens and on Rome during the Late Republic and Early Empire. Selected works of art and architecture, and specific urban and exurban sites will be considered. Issues surrounding 'classical' forms and their subsequent role in Western art and architecture will be investigated.

ARTH-203

Credit Hours:

4

Early Renaissance Art and Architecture

This course is an introduction to the art, architecture, and selected patterns of urban development in Italy during the Early Renaissance and the Quattrocento. Focus will be on developments in Siena, Rome, and especially Florence. Issues surrounding 'classicism' and the development of new representational systems, new scales and materials in sculpture, new spatial and structural forms in architecture, and new relations to urbanism and centers of power and global expansion will be explored.

ARTH-204

Credit Hours:

4

High Renaissance and Baroque Art & Architecture

This course provides an introduction to the art, architecture, and selected patterns of urban development Rome during the High Renaissance, Mannerism, and the Baroque era through the papacy of Alexander VII (1655-67). Developments from ca. 1450 on in Rome leading to Julius II and the Roman High Renaissance will be a prime focus. Consideration of Mannerism, the Council of Trent and early Baroque visual and architectural forms (later 16th century) will lead to the second focus on 17th century visual and spatial practices in Counter-Reformation Rome and beyond.

ARTH-210

Credit Hours:

4

Special Topics in Ancient to Baroque Art History

ARTH-211

Credit Hours:

4

History of Photography

An introduction to the history of photography from its inception in 1839 to the present day. The class focuses specifically on the multivalent functions of photography in society globally, the theoretical and conceptual bases of its production, consumption and on the critical analysis of photography as a field of art production.

ARTH-212

Credit Hours:

4

American Art

An introduction to American Art and Visual Culture of the American colonies and the United States from the Early-Colonial Period to the beginning of World War II. The class focuses specifically on how Art, Popular Culture and Mass Culture function in the visual culture of the United States until 1939.

ARTH-220

Credit Hours:

4

Special Topics in Modern Art History

ARTH-222

Credit Hours:

4

Representing Africa on Film

An examination of ethnographic/documentary film dealing with Africa as well as contemporary cinema produced by African filmmakers. This class accords particular attention to the perspectives of African filmmakers as agents in the representation of cultures, social realities and histories in Africa.

ARTH-223

Credit Hours:

4

Arts of Oceania

An examination of the diverse arts and cultures of the South Pacific. This course focuses on objects, concepts and practices from Polynesia, Melanesia, Micronesia and Australia as well as the portrayal and interpretation of arts from this geographical region in other areas of the world.

ARTH-225

Credit Hours:

4

Arts of Post-Colonial Africa

This course examines selected issues and debates related to the production, interpretation and collection of visual arts in post-colonial Africa. By way of a series of case studies, we will consider both the individual voices of artists and perspectives from art world information brokers.

ARTH-230

Credit Hours:

4

Special Topics in African Art History

ARTH-231

Credit Hours:

4

Art of Japan

An introduction to Japanese architecture, sculpture, painting and the decorative arts from prehistoric times to the 20th century, with an emphasis on the works in their cultural and religious context.

ARTH-232

Credit Hours:

4

Art of China

This course is an introduction to Chinese visual culture from prehistoric times through the Mao era. Organized around a selection of key objects and images, this course explores a variety of art forms from China through diverse contexts such as ritual, gender, imperial patronage, literati ideals, and political icons.

ARTH-240

Credit Hours:

4

Special Topics in Asian Art History

ARTH-262

Credit Hours:

4

Special Topics in Art History and Museum Studies

ARTH-281

Credit Hours:

4

19th Century Art History and Visual Culture

This class explores the nature, character, implications and power of the avant -garde and academic art theory and practice in art societies. It analyzes the many layers of political, cultural and social meanings of art in the nineteenth century, as well as its artistic meanings, purposes, effects and agendas. Some topics to be examined include the neoclassical, the romantic, the ideal, Realism, Impressionism, and Post-Impressionism.

ARTH-299

Credit Hours:

1-4

Intermediate Topics in Art

A general category used only in the evaluation of transfer credit.

ARTH-302

Credit Hours:

4

Medieval Art and Architecture

This course is an advanced investigation of art and architectural developments in the Latin West and Byzantine East during the medieval period. Selective foci include western monastic art, building, and lay patronage in Spain, France, and Burgundy during the Romanesque and early Gothic periods, as well as eastern monasticism in Constantinople, Greece, and Asia Minor in the Middle Byzantine period. Issues unique to each cultural sphere will be considered, such as feudalism in the West, and the icon and the role of the Imperial family and Constantinopolitan aristocracy in the East.

ARTH-313

Credit Hours:

4

New Art (Late 20th/21st Century)

This advanced-level class examines Art and Visual Culture since 1980, mostly in the western world, but increasingly globally after 2000. The class explores the intellectually complex, multivalent and frequently socially and politically engaged art of today, focusing on its conceptual platforms, agendas, meanings, purposes, and effects. The course examines an increasingly pluralistic and global art world through the lenses of both Art History and Visual Culture, and it explores the museum as a contested site.

ARTH-324

Credit Hours:

4

Visual Life in African Cities

An advanced level course. Cities in Africa, like their counterparts elsewhere in the world, are intensely -- perhaps even unrelentingly - artistic environments. In Dakar as in Nairobi, in Johannesburg as in Lagos, the urban terrain's unparalleled resources enable myriad artistic phenomena including paintings and sculptures, modernist architecture and public monuments, sartorial expression, as well as print and electronic media such as cartoons, advertisements, video, television, the internet, and popular music. In this seminar style course, students will investigate the artistic propositions and creative resources constituting the urban environment in Africa by way of a series of case studies.

ARTH-333

Credit Hours:

4

Art and Revolution in 20th Century China

This advanced-level course examines the complicated relationship between art and politics in China through key debates and developments in Chinese visual culture during the 20th century. The class explores competing narratives that negotiate the tensions between "tradition and modernity," "East and West," "local and global" and their implications for revolutions in art. Particular attention will be paid to interrogating the ideological underpinnings of artistic mediums and formats, the historiographical stakes of modernity, and the assertion of cultural memory in art and text.

ARTH-361

Credit Hours:

1-4

Directed Study

For the student of marked creative ability who wishes to pursue advanced subjects not otherwise listed, such as design, drawing, graphics, ceramics or history and criticism.

ARTH-362

Credit Hours:

1-4

Directed Study

For the student of marked creative ability who wishes to pursue advanced subjects not otherwise listed, such as design, drawing, graphics, ceramics or history and criticism.

ARTH-363

Credit Hours:

1-4

Independent Study

ARTH-364

Credit Hours:

1-4

Independent Study

ARTH-380

Credit Hours:

4

Methods of Art History and Visual Culture

This class is required for Art History majors. This class is the first of the three-part capstone experience for the Art History major. It introduces students to the theoretical and methodological platforms of Art History and Visual Culture and examines the historical development of the fields of both Art History and Visual Culture. It introduces students to the methods and theoretical approaches of practicing scholars in the field and asks students to formulate their own platforms, which they will translate into active research in the second and third capstone courses (ARTH 408 and 409).

ARTH-399

Credit Hours:

1-4

Advanced Topics in Art

A general category used only in the evaluation of transfer credit.

ARTH-408

Credit Hours:

4

Art History Senior Seminar: Research

In this required course, senior majors will research and prepare the senior thesis.

ARTH-409

Credit Hours:

1

Art History Senior Seminar: Writing

In this required course, senior majors will present their senior thesis during our annual senior symposium.